well joining us now are the president of
the hindu forum of britain tripty patel
and sonny hundal
a political commentator who writes for
the online blog open democracy welcome
to you both tripty can i start by asking
you
good evening um the prime minister's
obviously paying quite a price to try
and get these reforms through what
what's the benefit what's the what's the
prize as far as the government is
concerned
it's not just the government this reform
has been needed for a
for a long period of time and previous
governments actually commissioned
um this one the swaminathan committee
and various other committees where it
came out that how can we
make sure that our farmers actually do
better than what they've been subjected
to
how can they come out of the poverty
trap
how can they come out of not being in
the shackles
of the um agriculture uh produced
mondays
uh that you mentioned earlier on so long
before
um the the present term indian
government started the
started started the government uh it was
actually in the pipeline and many states
actually made those rules so that for
example
uh if we look at um uh if pepsi pepsi
company wanted um
potatoes for the crisps or if um
uh any other like wine for the beer or
any
any other commodities there are there
were certain roots
but everything was shackled shackled in
terms of very rigid regulations
and when you look around the world when
you look at the agricultural laws of
this country
modernization is required to meet
the need of the other and modernization
is something that should
be helpful to everyone and this is what
the
these laws are so if you look back even
there are
all right there are um newspaper
clippings there are video recordings of
many people who are actually objecting
to these laws now
let's bring sunny in here
unexceptional in the sense that it's
intended to improve productivity
take indian agriculture into the modern
age
so why is it uh politically dangerous do
you think for narendra modi to press
ahead with this
uh good evening i mean look it's a bit
like i think putting a corner shop next
to
tesco and saying to them you know go and
compete against each other
there's no doubt that india's uh
you know farm laws and its whole
agriculture system needs modernization
but the problem is most people who are
farmers in india
and i think there's an uh there's a
strong uk connection here because you
have to remember there's 500 000
punjabis in this country
and they have very strong family links
to punjab that's why they're angry about
these
uh issues the problem is that you're
putting these
small businessmen and saying to them go
and compete
and work with these giant multinationals
and what's going to happen what they're
going to do is they're going to squeeze
the small farmers
and i think that's the biggest worry for
a lot of them in india
and that's why actually there's been so
much interest of on this issue even in
the uk because
uh you know like i said there's a fight
there's a half a million punjabis in
this country
in canada in the united states and all
these
people have family links to what's going
on in india they're interested in
uh you know the political affairs over
there but they're interested in what
their families
how they're being affected by this whole
situation and most farmers across the
country are saying this is going to be
bad for us you're putting us at the
mercy of
multinational corporations tripty that
that's got to be a point hasn't it
people will just be rolled under the
steamroller of big agribusiness
at once these uh traditional protections
are removed
well if if you think about it there are
100 over 100 million
farmers in india and how many are
protesting
see what what you got to look at it as
well is that
it's not just the punjabis who have got
the links to the farming
there are there are gujaratis there are
biharis there are kashmiris
there are all sorts of indians all over
indians living in this country
have farming roots in india so so it is
not fair to actually say
that only punjabis and if you look at
the whole situation out of 100 million
farmers
if um less than a percent one percent
are actually um talking against it
then there is some some concern and
the government actually talked to them
11 times uh
and uh the the the argument been put
forward is that you've got to repeal
this first
now you tell me first is there any
government in the world
that is when they put a law in with
both houses of the parliament without
any objections
or obstructions uh with all proper
process
followed then how can a handful of
people say that
repeal this law no the best thing is
really to sit down together
to mediate together to go point by point
and remove those points that you don't
like it
it there is no agitation is okay but
you need to you need to negotiate to
achieve something
that is not in the interest of the com
your country
or people or people living abroad like
all of us
let me bring you in sorry sorry trippy
but just picking up on your last point
about the need to sit down and negotiate
i just wondered to what extent the
inter-communal
dynamic of this is going to complicate
those negotiations because
it's obvious looking at the footage that
a lot of sikhs are involved in this
protest
and i wonder to what extent that
community feels that these laws
are working particularly against their
interests
well it's not just sikhs who are getting
involved in these protests they've been
protests all over the country from the
south
to the east to the west and the north
where punjab
is but you know actually what's
happening over there
is going to have a huge impact over here
as well and that's because you know
what what the government is doing now is
trying to make this into a sikh protest
and say
that these people are being led by
extremists and their sikhs
and they're trying to take the
government into
you know ruin the government and what
it's doing is it's turning this whole
issue into a sikhs versus hindu issue
as a way to delegitimize the protests
and that's dangerous because like i said
there's 500 000 sikhs in this country
there's 500 000
do you fear violence in this country
sonny as a result of this
yes if there's violence in india there's
going to be violence in this country
that's what worries me and i think that
we
as the government here have a duty to
tell the indian government to calm down
some of its rhetoric because it's really
hate speech over there and it's really
dangerous
final answer tripty fair point there
from sunni a need to cool this
atmosphere now well absolutely in a
sense that you need to talk
both sides need to come on the table
both sides need to start talking
sense okay i i don't think that in this
country
we work on on an interfaith level we
work on a local level
regional level we work with the hindu
sikh community
is not separated because if you if you
look back the roots
roots is in in this anatomy culture as
we call it on the subcontinent
so i can't see that um the two
communities could be at the loggerhead
what do we need to make not true it's
actually happening it's already been
happening over the last four years since
now what do we need to make sure
these
i'm so sorry we've just got to end it
there we're out of time